This invention is directed to a pixel size sensor of an array of sensors for an infrared pitless microbridge construction of high fill factor. In this invention the large fill factor (&gt;75%) is made possible by placing the detector microbridge on a second plane above the silicon surface carrying the integrated diode and bus lines.
Prior art microbridge thermal detector arrays in a silicon substrate have been fabricated and one such example is shown in the U.S. Pat. No. 3,801,949. In these prior art references, the small pixels have a low fill factor because the detector, the bus lines and the diode are all in the same plane each using a substantial share of the available pixel area.